"That is happiness; to be disolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." - Willa Cather

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Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Our love cocoon

I'm attempting to breastfeed this little guy as I write. We have been having a lot of fun with him despite the crying and waking up in the middle of the night. What would I do if I were working? I hate to think of the fact that I'd be going back to work in 4 days if I were in Oklahoma. But instead we are in our love cocoon. SR has three weeks off and I am trying not to worry about what life will be like when he goes back to work. I'm only going back part time, so that will be nice.

One thing so far I had not anticipated about motherhood was my irrational reactions to fear of something happening to Christian. I was standing out by our dumpster and imagining someone throwing him in. It is cold out there. He would surely try to find the nipple for a while and whimper and then just die. I started crying and I'm getting tears in my eyes writing about it. SR's daughter joked about throwing him in the garbage and again I cried. He is just so helpless.

SR's kids have been wonderful with Christian. It really impresses me how naturally they love him despite being jealous. I worry a lot about my preoccupation with Christian and hope they know I still love them.

Speaking of preoccupation, I wouldn't be sealegsgirl if I didn't talk about weight gain and exercise.

As of today, my weight is back to my pre-pregnancy weight! And my exercising so far has been as follows.

So yes, I'm back running and it felt awesome. I went so fast and it felt effortless. I can't wait to run outside in nice weather. I had a dream the night before last that I was running on a trail in wide open plains in Nebraska in the middle of summer. I saw what I thought was a storm coming, but when it got closer I realized it was a group of angels with flaxen hair and smiling, beautiful faces. They picked me up and took me with them, watering the fields as we flew.

SR and I have been planning our spring and summer running schedule, which includes a bunch of relays so we can hand Christian off as a baton.

Alright, we're off to the Y. Thanks again to everyone for your comments! They made us feel so happy.

You are both right. I asked my mom if there was ANYTHING about Christian that looked like me and she thought for a long time and couldn't come up with anything. SR joked about injecting me with some other woman's egg and I started crying. Yes, the new mother psyche is quite fragile. :0)

You know, when my daughter was a baby, EVERYONE went on and on about how much she looked like her daddy. Now that she's four, everyone always says she looks just like me (and she does now!). So I'm sure Christian will exhibit some of your features as he gets older. :-)

Congrats! He's beautiful! I've been reading for a while and thought I would finally comment. Good job on keeping your exercise level up. I'm envious. I'm 9 months pregnant and have tried to stay as active as possible but suffered quite a bit of pelvic pain throughout the pregnancy so wasn't able to keep running 3-4 miles, a few times a week. (My former level.) But I'm pretty confident I'll bounce back fairly quickly after the birth. If she would just get here already.....!

So I've also been following your blog for a while. Sorry if that's odd... But I'm due in four weeks and was wondering whether you had to have an episiotomy or not and if so, how it's affected your running. Your son is adorable. I love the picture with the four of you. It's like he knows that he needs to pose for the camera.

Christian is gorgeous and, yes, he does look like SR! At least people aren't all, "He doesn't look like either of you!" or "He looks like an alien!" :)

Thanks for sharing this update. I'm really impressed that you've been able to ease back into the exercise as well as you have. From my uneducated position, it almost seems like easing into exercise after childbirth can be compared to easing into exercise again after an expedition race or a 100 miler or something extreme like that. Only the soreness and fatigue might be centralized in a -er- slightly different region of the body.

Congrats again and I look forward to following your family's progress!

Thanks everyone! And congrats to Allison!!! I'm so excited for you. I'd do it all over again in a second (but honestly hope it's not that soon). Abbie, luckily I didn't have an episiotomy. The fact he was so small certainly helped. I did have two stitches up in there somewhere that I am not aware of when I exercise.

Hello from Rude Skov

Photo by Stine Sophie Winckel

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My name is Tracy. I am a physician scientist from the USA, living with my husband and two young boys in Denmark. I work as a post-doc fellow at Næstved Hospital. I have a scientific interest in vision loss, vision loss during exercise, exercise, running during pregnancy, MAF training as well as nutrition and health for athletes. I also have a love for music, physics, statistics, cycling, yoga, cross-country skiing, bla bla bal.

I was a member of Team USA at the IAU World Championships in Ultra Trail Running in 2013 in Wales. I am now training to run with Team Denmark at the IAU World Championships in Annency, France in May 2015.